{"id":27616,"date":"2018-11-06T14:31:50","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T14:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/?p=27616"},"modified":"2018-11-06T14:31:50","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T14:31:50","slug":"heartbroken-mum-makes-funeral-plans-before-baby-was-born","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/06\/heartbroken-mum-makes-funeral-plans-before-baby-was-born\/","title":{"rendered":"Heartbroken Mum Makes Funeral Plans Before Baby Was Born"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Heartbroken mum had to make funeral plans before her baby was born. <\/span><\/p>\n

Shabina Akhtar, 34, \u00a0from Birmingham who gave birth to a beautiful baby boy had just two precious hours with him before he tragically died in her arms.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shabina was told at 20 weeks of her pregnancy that her baby had Potter\u2019s Syndrome, a fatal condition where the kidneys fail to develop and was offered to terminate but wanted to give her baby a chance of survival. <\/span><\/p>\n

Shabina had to prepare for the worst and started making funeral arrangements for her baby while she was still pregnant. <\/span><\/p>\n

She says she treasures those precious minutes she had with baby Mohammed, and has no regrets about her decision.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt the scan I was told that there was no amniotic fluid around the baby, and he had no kidney,\u201d she recalls.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey said he \u2018wasn\u2019t viable with life\u2019, and offered me a termination.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had never even heard of Potter\u2019s Syndrome, and many babies who have it are stillborn.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was horrible. You get past the 12-week mark, and you think after that everything will be OK, and your baby will just get stronger and grow<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut because of my religion I didn\u2019t feel I had the right to make that decision, so I continued with the pregnancy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere was also a small part of me that had a glimmer of hope that the diagnosis might be wrong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Shabina told her family, who supported her decision and helped her to make arrangements.<\/span><\/p>\n

On May 27, 2017, Shabina went into labour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mohammad Mustafa Ahmed was born via caesarean section at\u00a0<\/span>Heartlands Hospital<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Medics told her that her little boy wouldn\u2019t survive, and they did their best to make him comfortable.<\/span><\/p>\n

He survived for two hours and 19 minutes, and as he took his last breath, Shabina cuddled him in her arms.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t change it for the world. I have no regrets,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was so small and precious. I held him until his last breath.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The next day, as with Muslim religious traditions, Mohammed\u2019s funeral took place.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sadly for Shabina, she had suffered a blood clot during labour, and was unable to attend his burial.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy sister stayed with me, and I was actually having a CT scan at the time, as I\u2019d got a clot in my lung,\u201d she explains.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut the bereavement nurses at Heartlands were amazing. They really helped me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey were there for me during my darkest hours, and I will never forget their kindness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Shabina is raising money for the Eden Suite, the bereavement ward that helped her through the tragedy.<\/span><\/p>\n

She is raising money for a CuddleCot \u2013 a moses basket with a built-in cooling unit.<\/span><\/p>\n

It helps stop a baby\u2019s body from deteriorating, so that grieving parents can spend longer with their newborns who have died.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t one available for Mohammed,\u201d says Shabina, who also has three daughters, Alishba, nine, Eliza, five and Iraj, three months.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut I know it would have made a huge difference to us.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I wanted to raise money for a new CuddleCot on the Eden Suite. I know it will really help other families who sadly will go through what we did.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo have that extra time would have meant so much. I could have changed his clothes, and had more time to spend with him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe subject is still taboo in a lot of communities, including in the Asian community, so I think it\u2019s really important to share my experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOften people don\u2019t know what to say to you, but I want people to know it\u2019s good to be open.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt has affected my eldest daughter quite a lot, but I tried to explain that some babies are special and go to heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt means a lot to us all that we can give something back.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Shabina has raised more than \u00a32,300 in Mohammed\u2019s memory, and she will be presenting her donation to nurses at the Eden Suite . <\/span><\/p>\n

Sian Averill, Fundraising Manager at Heartlands Hospital Charity, says: \u201cThe charity\u2019s heartfelt thanks go to Shabina for her hard work in raising such a fantastic amount of money. Thanks to the generosity of fundraisers such as Shabina, the charity has been able to provide CuddleCots for the suite.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA CuddleCot keeps the baby cool, which extends the window of time that parents have to make memories with their baby, with the support of the specialist bereavement midwives on the unit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe\u00a0CuddleCots<\/a>\u00a0are so important for the ward \u2013 they give families that precious time with their babies that they wouldn\u2019t be able to have otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNone of this would be possible without the support of people like Shabina, who enable the charity to go \u2018over and above\u2019 for mothers and their families on the Eden Suite.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

* If you would like to donate to the Eden Suite at Heartlands you can visit Shabina\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Just Giving\u00a0<\/a><\/span>fundraising page at or go to\u00a0<\/span>www.hospitalcharity.org<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Heartbroken mum had to make funeral plans before her baby was born. Shabina Akhtar, 34, \u00a0from Birmingham who gave birth to a beautiful baby boy had just two precious hours with him before he tragically died in her arms. Shabina was told at 20 weeks of her pregnancy that her baby had Potter\u2019s Syndrome, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,3,283],"tags":[1031,853,1671],"class_list":["post-27616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-top-news","tag-baby","tag-funeral","tag-sabina-akhtar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}